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Sharon Oxendine is called to the country. Her presence is in province, no matter her age or location.

She can trace the meaning of her life, from root to blossom, on the dusty roads between tobacco farms in Lumberton. Under the shade of grapevines in northern France. By the fire in a village in Burkina Faso. The welcoming wooded trails of Western North Carolina, her home since 1993.

The rural world is not just the setting of significance for Oxendine, 55. It's a symbol of her approach to community, the cornerstone of all her work, from drug and alcohol addiction counseling in area prisons to her ...